Yesterday we ventured to the trade village in hopes of kidnapping the most human-looking infant construct we could find. It is still unimaginable to me that humans should choose to live amongst and intimately with those goddamn aliens. It fucking disgusts me. These men and women choose to co-exist with aliens and create a cross-bred race of monsters. It’s a blight upon the whole human race.

When we made it to the outskirts of the village, we providentially stumbled upon a man holding a young construct child. We wrestled the child from his arms, delivered a blow to the back of the man’s head, and made off with the child, leaving the man for dead.

Upon first examination, the child looks every bit as human as a natural, normal child. However, we soon discovered things — physical characteristics and abilities that, given the age of the child, are completely alien and, frankly, revolting. This kid has the ugliest, unnatural, grey tongue I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t until the day after we abducted him that we discovered he could talk. He’s 17 months old and he can talk, communicate, and reason decades beyond someone of his age.

We drank heavily last night and this morning, one of our group — who suffers from stomach ulcers — began violently throwing up blood. It was at this time that the construct child said the most interesting, strangely thought-provoking, and disturbing thing. He informed us that an ooloi could stop his bleeding and pain and save his life. He told us there was no reason for our man to die. He told us his only chance of survival hinges on us taking him to the trader camp and letting one of their aliens save his life.

A few hours later, our man died. This was a devastating turn of events, but even more devastating was the thought that perhaps the human race is more dependent on the Oankali than we, than I, would like to admit. Perhaps the survival of our species actually does requires our co-habitation with an alien race.